KABUL -- An Afghan mujahideen commander who fought the Soviets and rose to become the country's first president after the Red Army retreated has died aged 93, his family said Tuesday (February 12).
Sibghatullah Mojaddedi, who commanded a mujahideen faction during the decade-long insurgency against the Soviet occupiers, passed away Monday (February 11) in a Kabul hospital after a long illness.
Mojaddedi's death comes three days before the 30th anniversary of the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan, which took place February 15, 1989.
After the withdrawal, Afghanistan's communist regime collapsed in 1992. Mojaddedi, who led the Afghan National Liberation Front, was chosen as interim president, serving just two months under a power-sharing deal before the country plunged into civil war.
